nk I don't know
anything. Perhaps I don't, and perhaps I do. I was standing in the door
of the office when you two came in from your automobile drive this
afternoon. I saw her come away without wishing you good-by, then I saw
her turn and nod, looking just as usual, and I saw her face afterwards.
If I had had you, my man, as close to me then as you are now, I'd have
boxed your ears."

He moved uneasily in his chair. There was no doubt about the girl's
earnestness. She was leaning a little forward, and her brown eyes were
filled with a hard, accusing light. There was a little spot of colour,
even, in her sallow cheeks. She was unmistakably angry.

"I'd like to know who you are and what you think yourself to make a woman
look like that?" she wound up.

The waiter entered with the cocktails and began to lay the cloth for
dinner. Philip paced the room uneasily until he had gone.

"Look here, my little friend," he said, when at last the door was closed,
"there's a great deal of sound common sense in what you say. I may be
an egoist--I dare say I am. I've been through the proper training for
it, and I've started life again on a pretty one-sided basis, perhaps.
But--have you ever been jealous?"

"Me jealous!" she repeated scornfully. "What of, I wonder?"

There was a suspicious glitter in her eyes, a queer little tremble in her
tone. His question, however, was merely perfunctory. She represented
little more to him, at that moment, than the incarnation of his own
conscience.

"Very likely you haven't," he went on. "You are too independent ever to
care much for any one. Well, I've been half mad with jealousy since last
night. That is the truth of it. There's another man wants her, the man
who built the theatre for her. She told me about him yesterday while we
were out together."

"Don't you want her to be happy?" the girl asked bluntly.

"Of course I do."

"Then leave her alone to choose. Don't go about looking as though you had
a knife in your heart, if you find her turn for a moment to some one
else. You don't want her to choose you, do you, just because you are a
weakling, because her great kind heart can't bear the thought of making
you miserable? Stand on your feet like a man and take your luck.... Can I
take off my hat? I can't eat in this."

The waiter had entered with the dinner. Merton opened the door of his
room and paced up and down, for a few moments, thoughtfully. When she
reappeared she took the seat